To little surprise, this is my favorite Final Fantasy game
so far. I hope to keep this post short (in comparison to my prior posts), and
shouldn’t be a problem as I don’t have many complaints with the game. I read
through each of the past five game posts before writing this, and I also plan
on avoiding the small nitpicks or positives I found in the game (example:
inventory is no longer limited- I wouldn’t have even thought of this positive
if I hadn’t read the other posts).
I’ll begin with a common theme of my positives found with
the game. The music continues to be amazing, one thing I feel like Square
couldn’t screw up with these games. I’m listening to the OST right now, and
enjoy the diversity of tracks, which fit in well with the areas of the game, or
themes of the cutscenes. Brought over from Final Fantasy V (and maybe IV?), I
really liked how every character has their own them. When a cutscene starts, and
a theme begins, the player knows who the focus is on, and who to be paying the
most attention to. And while it’s very difficult this time to point out the
best tracks, Celes’ theme has to be near the top, its greatness increased in
thanks to the island sequence. If there are any complaints with the music, it’s
that a few tracks have identical portions also heard in Chrono Trigger. Yes,
Final Fantasy VI came out over a year beforehand, and doesn’t really detract
from either game, but with such great musical talent on staff, would have liked
for more diversity.
Graphics are great, nothing outstanding, but nothing to
downplay during the game’s release timeframe. Areas are diverse, and feel
different. Wish the cities on the map were more visible, but again, me
nitpicking.
No segue here, just jumping to characterization. Final
Fantasy VI continues what IV and V started, of giving characters personalities,
and tying emotion into gameplay and cutscenes. Scenes aren’t as sad as Final
Fantasy V, but there’s also less death. The good news is for what death is
included, they’re no longer just plot devices. A death becomes a driving part
of the story, and gives characters a reason to move forward and take action.
Unfortunately, while Final Fantasy VI arguably shows more
emotion, character backstories and relationships feel barren. Side quests late
in the game help show some backstory to each character (game developers, take
note- these types of side quests are what we want to see, something that
actually plays into the plot, not fetch-quests for exp./money), but the
characters still feel one-dimensional. I would have enjoyed hearing more about
Shadow’s life, Locke’s childhood, Celes’ movement through the ranks to achieve
the title of General, and so on with everyone else. Beyond this, the
relationships between characters are weak at best. Love is a common theme
between characters, but that’s about it. By the end of the game, party members
have formed “clicks” that separate themselves from everyone else. We don’t get
to see how friendships form and evolve between the entire party. The party
segregates themselves into 9 main groups. See: Locke, Celes, and Terra; Edgar
and Sabin; Cyan; Shadow; Gau; Setzer; Mog and Umaro; Relm and Strago; Gogo.
When do Strago and Relm become friends with Locke’s click? Is Shadow aware of
Gau’s existence? What kind of scene would play out on Setzer’s airship with Mog
and Umaro running around? I’ve been spoiled by the tight-knit groups seen in
Final Fantasy IV and V, so this felt strange. I even formed by parties based on
knowing what interactions during cutscenes would occur, which is unfortunate.
As a side note, who could not love Ultros? The one character
that never fit with the game, but was always a joy to see appear. I had a good
chuckle seeing one of the three final statue bosses use the Ultros attack
(which I did not get Gau to learn, unfortunately). Ultros may be trapped
selling tickets to pay off a debt at the coliseum, but everyone seems to know
him.
Onwards! I’m still on the fence regarding the game’s
difficulty. On one hand, it was by far the easiest of the first six Final
Fantasy games, only giving me trouble with some end-game bosses. That’s
somewhat disappointing, but it was also nice to have a more relaxing game to
play, after the previous entries. It didn’t dawn on me until after I beat the game
that I never had to use a guide to figure out where to go next, or how to get
through a dungeon. That was a nice change, but not going to hold my breath for
games yet to come. I also realized that I rarely fled from random battles
during the game, even the final dungeon. That’s completely opposite of at least
Final Fantasy II through V.
However, I might have been over-leveled for much of the
game. While I wasn’t too high on the numbered level and stats for characters,
my magical abilities may have been above where I should have been in each area.
I grinded two or three times in the game solely to increase my party’s magical
abilities. As much as I loved the open-endedness of Final Fantasy V’s job
system, I also really enjoy systems such as Final Fantasy VI’s Espers. I like
being able to put all magical spells on each character (and to be able to do so
easily, spending a fraction of the time grinding as I had to do in Final
Fantasy V for magic points), and go into boss battles without worries.
It was also neat how magical abilities came from the Espers.
This pushed me to collect all of the Espers, because I wanted to be able to put
as many magical abilities on my party members as possible, even for spells I
would never use. I become a completionist at times, for little reason other
than to see a completed screen. I only
grinded all magic spells onto seven characters (Locke, Edgar, Sabin, Shadow,
Celes, Terra, and Cyan), not including Crusader’s, who I obtained but didn’t
care about since I was in the final dungeon.
I also liked how Espers had a secondary function of increasing
stat boosts for characters at level-ups. This meant I spent even more time
flying through the menu screens to check who was close to level up, and what Esper
was equipped at the time. I only wish that could have been more streamlined, as
I probably spent too much time in the
menu screens constantly checking. By the final dungeon, I didn’t care who had
what equipped and what bonuses may or may not have been attributed. I was
plowing through to the end.
While being able to give every party member the exact same
magic eliminated the differentiation between characters (as seen in prior
entries in the series), the personal abilities more than made up for the change.
I rarely used Locke’s Steal or Terra’s Morph, but relied heavily on using Edgar’s
Tools (loved Chainsaw), Sabin’s Blitzes (loved Bum Rush), and Shadow’s Throw
(when he was in the party). If I play the game again someday, I’ll try to learn
more Rages for Gau, as there look to be many of them, and that could have been
quite fun.
Finally, I feel I need to touch upon the final dungeon.
Splitting up the party was really annoying every time it occurred in the game.
It was frustrating every time because I never knew what kind of enemies I’d be
facing, how long the dungeon was, etc. I enjoyed the last dungeon, but probably
would have more so if I were able to control a single party (but obviously that
would mean a less strategic and eventful final battle against Kefka’s forms-
unless the airship came swooping down during the pre-battle cutscene, with all
the other party members).
I did enjoy the last dungeon, though. I thought I had a
great strategy going into that dungeon. The three parties were as follows:
Team 1: Locke, Sabin, Strago, Celes
Team 2: Edgar, Shadow, Setzer, Terra
Team 3: Cyan, Gau, Umaro, Mog
Notice how team 3 is extremely weak and limited compared to
the others. Cyan had plenty of magic spells, but Mog only had a few spells and only
up to Life 2 and Cure 3 (but was missing Cure 2 for some reason). Gau had no
spells, and Umaro obviously doesn’t have any. I did this because Mog had the
Moogle charm, and could explore the final dungeon freely without worry of
random battles. Little did I know that mini-bosses would be scattered throughout.
Team 1 fought a statue mini-boss and the Skull dragon- no problems at all. Team
2 fought one statue mini-boss (and skipped Atma- I got destroyed the one time I
tried) - no problems either. Team 3 had to fight the Inferno mini-boss, the
Gold Dragon, and then a statue boss, Doom. These three battles were the hardest
and most strategic I had in the game, behind only Kefka’s final form. The first
time I fought the Doom statue, Cyan, Gau, and Mog were killed off quite quick,
and Umaro fought by himself for over 20 minutes. I put down the controller, and
watched. Since Doom kept using Ice attacks, it kept healing Umaro. Umaro would
heal Doom for around 1,300 with Ice Storm, but for every time he did, he dealt
over 3,000 damage in other attacks. Unfortunately Doom’s second form killed
Umaro, but I was very hopeful that I’d beat one of the last bosses in the game
without pressing a button. The second time I was able to keep most party alive
the whole battle- sorry Gau. I originally hated myself for forming the third
party as such, but after those three battles was very proud of what I was able
to accomplish with such a strange team.
And to top it off, the most interesting boss battle of the
Final Fantasy series up to that point, Kefka. I really didn’t understand the
set-up beforehand, with 12 spots open. But after Shadow died and was replaced
in Kefka’s second form battle, I immediately understood. At that point, while
the battles were really quite easy (thanks to everyone spamming Ultima, and the
occasional Cure 3 to heal), I became more aware of the boss’ attacks. I tried
to figure out when the attacks would change and signal the boss having half or
low health, to insure that I could keep all of my party members alive. I did
not want to enter the final form with a weak party member. Unfortunately, that
came halfway true. Upon entering Kefka’s final form, I was left with Locke,
Sabin, and Terra, which was great. I had not yet seen Celes, the last useful
party member after having lost Shadow and Edgar. Cyan joined the battle, to my
dismay. He was good for healing, but had low health and really didn’t do much except
for cast Ultima a few times. That was a really neat and fun entire battle.
So there are my thoughts on Final Fantasy VI. Gameplay time
was around 52 hours, well above any of the others, and sadly an increasing
trend that won’t stop until around…um…maybe Lightning Returns? Or Crisis Core
if that counts? I honestly think that VII, VIII, IX, X, X-2, XII, XIII, and
XIII-2 are all at least 80 hours each. Hopefully they’re all worth the time
investments. Six games down, only ten games left!
Game time so far:
Final Fantasy: 25 hours
Final Fantasy II: Unknown?
Final Fantasy III: Unknown?
Final Fantasy IV: Unknown?
Final Fantasy V: 42 hours
Final Fantasy VI: 52 hours
And of course, to end this post, my personal rankings at this
point in time, from best to worst:
Final Fantasy VI
Final Fantasy V
Final Fantasy IV
Final Fantasy II
Final Fantasy
Final Fantasy III
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